Obama To Give Himself Sweeping Power To Control Internet Content

Executive Order granting the president sweeping power over the Internet is “close to completion.”

After the Congress repeatedly killed attempts to give power to Obama to regulate and control the internet, Obama has decided to ignore Congress and issue another decree – errrr Executive Order, granting himself the power to take over the internet and shut it down or regulate it in the name of ‘security’.

Obama had already signed an Executive Order back in July that granted him an “internet kill switch” in the event of a ‘crisis’ or ‘national emergency’ that he, himself will define.  But that was not enough power.  It is the CONTENT on the internet that Obama disagrees with, that he wants to shut down.

This new Executive Order, in conjunction with DHS and other Executive agencies – will grant Obama sweeping power and control over the internet and it’s content.  Given the fact the Obama regime continues to blame a YouTube video for the 9-11 attacks and Islamic uproar at United States Embassies in the Middle East, Obama appears he will use the crisis as a justification for his decree to put the internet and it’s content under his direct control.

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Janet Napolitano said that the order is still “being drafted” and vetted by various high-level bureaucrats. But she also indicated that it would be issued as soon as a “few issues” were resolved. Assuming control of the nation’s Internet infrastructure is a DHS responsibility, Napolitano added.

Once Barack Obama signs his name to this edict and assuming compliance with its mandates changes from voluntary to involuntary, he will possess powers only dreamed about by the most ambitious dictators of history.

“In the wake of Congressional inaction and Republican stall tactics, unfortunately, we will continue to be hamstrung by outdated and inadequate statutory authorities that the legislation would have fixed. Moving forward, the President is determined to do absolutely everything we can to better protect our nation against today’s cyber threats and we will do that,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in an email reported by The Hill.

It is the hallmark of all Marxist dictatorships to control the flow of information.  In the name of security the Obama regime is assigning itself control over the flow of information.  This should frighten every American, especially considering his regime is repeating the suggestion that offending Islam is not freedom of speech, and is become a national security issue.  Therefore – under that pretext, Obama will justify his dictatorial action.

Goodbye Internet & 1st Amendment – Congress To Pass “Free Speech Kill Switch”

Federal legislation purporting to protect online intellectual property will impose sweeping new government mandates that will permit the Justice Department to shut down any internet site it doesn’t like (and cut off its sources of income) on nothing more than a whim.

The hits just keep coming.

The last bastion of free speech and information is about to be legislated away by Congress, and grant this tyrannical behemoth of a federal mammoth, the power to silence and shut down any web site, blog or critical commentary it does not like, under the guise of stopping those who steal online movies, essentially criminalizing the internet.

The US Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House version, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are Orwellian in scope, and will empower the government to patrol and have the ability to shut down and remove blogs, web sites and forums that are merely accused of or suspected of engaging in ‘copyright infringement’ without charge or trial.

The Chairman of Google noted:

[The] government [will have]the power to cut off Web sites unreasonably. They could be shut down, and search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo could be stopped from linking to them.

“The solutions are draconian,” Schmidt said Tuesday at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “There’s a bill that would require ISPs [Internet service providers] to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked.”

Even the liberal Lawrence Tribe warns about the unConstitutionality of these measures:

SOPA provides that a complaining party can file a notice alleging that it is harmed by the activities occurring on the site ‘or portion thereof .’ Conceivably, an entire website containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement. Such an approach would create severe practical problems for sites with substantial user-generated content, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and for blogs that allow users to post videos, photos, and other materials.”And likewise: “The notice-and-termination procedure of Section 103(a) runs afoul of the ‘prior restraint’ doctrine, because it delegates to a private party the power to suppress speech without prior notice and a judicial hearing. This provision of the bill would give complaining parties the power to stop online advertisers and credit card processors from doing business with a website,merely by filing a unilateral notice accusing the site of being ‘dedicated to theft of U.S. property’ — even if no court has actually found any infringement. The immunity provisions in the bill create an overwhelming incentive for advertisers and payment processors to comply with such a request immediately upon receipt.”

The Hill.com itself also warns about the Constitutionally destructive nature of these bills:

Under the so-called “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) the federal government – which is prohibited constitutionally from abridging free speech or depriving its citizens of their property without due process – would engage in both practices on an unprecedented scale. And in establishing the precursor to a taxpayer-funded “thought police,” it would dramatically curtail technology investment and innovation – wreaking havoc on our economy.

Consider this: Under the proposed legislation all that’s required for government to shutdown a specific website is the mere accusation that the site unlawfully featured copyrighted content.  Such an accusation need not be proven – or even accompanied by probable cause. All that an accuser (or competitor) needs to do in order to obtain injunctive relief is point the finger at a website.

Think about that for a moment.  Any liberal mainstream media site, who is in the tank for Obama, or by behest of those they support, can claim copyright infringement and have forums, blogs and other internet discussion groups talking about the news they write, blocked and taken down without so much as a hearing.  And to coerce your ISP to ‘do as they say’ by yanking your site – the Hill reports:

…SOPA would grant regulators the ability to choke off revenue to the owners of these newly classified “rogue” websites by accusing their online advertisers and payment providers as co-conspirators in the alleged “piracy.” Again, no finding of fact would be required – the mere allegation of impropriety is all that’s needed to cut the website’s purse strings.

 The proposals also mandate that User activity be policed and monitored by the ISP, and establishes the same kind of government-restricted firewall that China and North Korea employ against their citizens.

But then again, the Ruling Class tyrants will no longer suffer us little people from getting our information from sources besides their mainstream crony lackeys, and will do anything to silence and prevent dissent against their rule over us.

U.S. Government Moves To Ban Internet Access

Taking a cue from Communist China, Congress moves to empower the Federal Government to ban access to web sites.

Under the guise of national security and interfering with infringement on any copyrighted material, the House of Representatives this week introduced the “Rogue Web Sites Bill”; legislation designed to allow the government to create lists of internet sites that are to be banned from any access by Americans.

Note that tyrannical regimes necessitate the crackdown of the free flow of information, and they ALWAYS do so under the auspices of security or legality to protect the interests of the state and those allied with it.

The days of a free internet are rapidly disappearing into the iron grip of an insatiable government monster.

The New American reports:

U.S. Government Seeks to Create Website Ban List

The U.S. House of Representatives recently introduced a “rogue websites” bill that has managed to attract bipartisan support even though it would force Internet Service Providers to create a list of banned websites and prevent users of those websites from accessing their sites. The list is all too similar to the “ban lists” that are found in China…

It is the House version of a bill that was introduced in the U.S. Senate earlier this year called the Theft of Intellectual Property Act or Protect IP Act.

While the touted focus of the bill is on foreign websites, it may just as easily be applied to all .com domains.

The very language of the bill indicates it is trying to empower the federal government to ban websites.

Once again, the federal government is being given permission to act in violation of individual rights just based on an accusation of something believed to be unlawful, without legal process.

The newest proposal to acquire the ability to ban websites should not come as too much of a shock, as the government has already taken the authority to demand that websites remove information and videos which contain too much “government criticism.” Google admits that there has been a substantial increase in the number of requests by the federal government to take down certain information.